The Hurt Locker cleaned up at the Oscars on sunday, taking a total of six Academy Awards. While there has been some controversy as to the film’s authenticity, it remains a compelling narrative of a part of the Iraq war. Here are a few more in-depth looks at the E.O.D teams in Iraq and how they operate.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/05/photo_essay_the_real_hurt_locker?page=0,0

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/03/how_the_hurt_locker_bomb_suit.html

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/bomb.html

Combat Films is finally getting pre-production underway for the next installment in the Beyond the Border series. Korea: The Last Divided State, will focus on factors both current and historical, that have made North and South Korea the last divided state left over from the cold war era. As with most CFR productions, we are always following current events, so expect a lot of news updates on Korea in the future.

Like this one.

Found a really interesting video from the Atlantic website. It profiles the Gurkhas, a group of young men mostly from Nepal, who have fought for the British in every war since 1815. The Gurkhas have been tasked with training the Afghan National Army and Police in Helmand and have been fairly successful at it. This could be in part to a cultural sensitivity that other units may not come by as easily. Either way, it is always nice to see a positive story come out of the region.

Here is the Link

Not 300, but 30,000, and a new strategy for Afghanistan, based in part on protecting the population centers like Kandahar–Taliban central. What makes me sick about the whole thing is the political theater surrounding the decision. The Right, which clearly wants Obama to fail, is ridiculing the plan as too little too late. Fox’s Hannity implied that the president’s popularity, at a low, is a reflection of this weakness, knowing full well that the real blow to Obama’s political cache, and subsequently his popularity, is coming from his own party and base, many of whom see the escalation of troops to Afghanistan, as MSNBCs Left leaning Oberman put it, campaign promises made now broken.

The fact is, the decision to send 30,000 troops was based on a good deal of thought, rounded out with political expediency for course–but based on considerable instruction and debate amongst our nation’s military leadership. There have been numerous plans put forward from within the military community, many with merit, from which the president had to decide. In the end, president Obama made a decision based on the data and recommendations from the military elite in this country, that in addition to Gen McCristol, included Bush appointed Sec Gates, National Security Advisor Jones, CENTCOM commander Gen Petreaus, and a host of other respected and in-the-know military leaders.

Is it the right decision? Only time will tell. It is a tough one to be sure–for any president to make. However, we ought all to remember that during the campaign Obama one-uped McCain on a nationally televised debate, stating that the US under his leadership would fight on in Afghanistan to success and hunt down and kill bin Laden for the security of the region and the United States. McCain, whom I admire greatly, his only counter, because basically Obama took a traditionally hawkish i.e., Republican stand on Afghanistan, was to confront Obama on making his plan public.

This is one campaign promise President Obama is keeping, and it ought to make the Right happy because this is what it has clamored for–but it wont. And he isn’t going to make any more friends and supporters on the Left as a result of this decision. This is high stakes stuff for the soldiers, the nation and ultimately the presidency.

And seriously, these accusations, too little too late?! Having been on the ground in Afghanistan with US forces in 2001 and 2002 and watching the shift of focus to preparation for Iraq in mid 2002 was startling. The argument that I hear periodically from both the Left and Right, that eight years of fighting and still no progress, is simply not at all accurate. Had we not diverted our attention to Iraq (for better or worse) and truly fought on in Afghanistan, to the best of our ability, Afghanistan might truly be a different place, and we might be wrapping up now rather than getting started again.

The Salt Lake Tribune had an interesting article on Helen Foster Snow last Sunday. Last week, two dozen Chinese officials traveled to Cedar City to honor her life and achievements with a bronze statue presented to city officials. Combat Film’s documentary on her life and work is now available on DVD and is mentioned in the article as well.

Here is the link

Just to put things in perspective. The USA’s Prudhoe Bay oil field, discovered in the 1960s, with over 25 billion barrels of oil, has an estimated 25 million barrels remaining. Mexico’s Cantarell oil field has produced over 11 billion barrels in its lifetime and has an estimated 12.5 million barrels remaining, half of which are considered difficult and therefor expensive to get out of the ground. And the Kern River field in California, which has pumped over 2 billion barrels of oil since 1899, is said to have about 3.5 million barrels remaining. But the Ramallah oil field in southern Iraq, which currently pumps out 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, is said to still have 17-20 billion barrels up for grabs.

With much celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall going on, some attention is being given to the walls that still divide us. The first most obvious example is that of the North and South Korean border. Created in 1953 as a result of the armistice between the two countries, this 155 mile border is currently the most heavily militarized border in the world. A celebration of this anniversary begs the question, why has the same reunification not happened for the Koreas? What are the factors that have prevented this from happening? And is reunification even possible for two cultures that have evolved separately for over half a century? Combat films is currently in preproduction on Korea: The Last Divided State the next installment of the Beyond the Border series. The film will address these questions and many more, so stay tuned. In the meantime, check out this interesting piece the BBC did for the anniversary of the fall of the wall.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8349847.stm

The shooting at Ft Hood last week got me thinking about the current material and mental condition of the Army, the deployment tempo over the last eight years, success in Iraq, and the pending surge of forces into Afghanistan. Anthony Cordesman said in an interview last month, “You don’t tailor the war to maintain peacetime readiness. You maintain peacetime assets precisely so you can consume them in war.”

It was the word “consume” that I can’t get out of my head. To consume: To destroy or expend by use: use up. To eat or drink up; devour. To destroy, as a decomposition or burning. To spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully. To absorb; engross. These definitions illustrate an important point–the armed forces are an instrument of the state, to be used as necessary by the state to accomplish the objectives of the state.

In past wars, previous to Vietnam, the state mobilized along side the armed forces and all overall assets, civilian and military were consumed, sharing the burden, cost and sacrifice of war. Today there is no draft, no sugar or rubber rationing, no war bonds. The fact is, the military effort of the armed forces has become disconnected from the general populace, and therefor there is less support for returning and deploying members of the armed forces than there might be should the whole nation be engaged in the conflicts at hand.

I don’t know where I am going with this, but a couple of years ago a soldier told me it wasn’t until between his second and third deployments that he realized he was alone from the nation, that everyone around him was making money, prospering (before the current financial meltdown), raising families and living the American dream.

I was recently in California visiting friends and was introduced to an engineer who designed tanks and worked for a large defense contractor in the area. The conversation turned to the recent cuts to the future weapons program and the accompanying layoffs across the defense industry. He informed me that while he was sad to see about six hundred of his co-workers let go, he fully understood the logic behind Secretary Gates decision. He said that while tanks will always have their place in field, we currently and prospectively do not have an enemy for which they make sense as a primary tool of engagement. Our resources are better served in adapting our current arsenal for the insurgent tactics which we are facing now, such as the IED’s , widely used in Iraq and now Afghanistan. He went on to mention that one of the reasons that he still had a job, was that he was involved with the roll out of more MRAP vehicles that are being sent to Afghanistan to help protect against the increased us of roadside bombs there.

I was on Facebook last night and got a notice from a friend in Kabul that a fairly large bomb had just detonated near his compound. He even pulled out his camera and took a picture of the mushroom cloud from his window. I went to the news wire services and nothing. I went back on Facebook, talked to my friend a little bit more about what had happened. Twenty minutes later the news wire began transmitting the story.

I can’t say I would rely on Facebook to get my news but having friends in far away places, part of such a pervasive social networking apparatus, is an interesting spin on the media. Maybe it isn’t “the media” after all but lots of little media machines.

And Scott, the previous post is lame.